THE

PHILOSOPHY OF THE BATH;

OR,

AIR AND WATER

IN

HEALTH AND DISEASE:

CONTAINING A

HISTORY OF HYDRO-THERAPEUTICS, AND OF THE HOT-AIR
BATH FROM THE EARLIEST AGES, WITH AN
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER ILLUSTRATIVE

OF THE PRESENT CONDITION OF

THE MEDICAL PROFESSION.

BODI

BY

DURHAM DUNLOP, M.R.I.A.

"Non est vivere, sed valere vita."-MARTIAL.

"He hath abandoned his Physicians, Madam, under whose practices he hath
persecuted time with hope, and finds no other advantage in the process, but only the
losing of hope by time."-SHAKESPERE.

LONDON:

SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, & CO., STATIONERS' HALL COURT.
AND ALL BOOKSELLERS.

BELFAST:

ARCHER AND SONS,

PRINTERS.

PREFACE.

THIS work originated in a series of papers contributed by the writer to a public journal with which he was connected. They excited some attention at the time, and it was suggested that, if revised and published in a separate form, they might aid in diffusing a more correct knowledge of the Bath than generally prevails.

It was found, however, that, to do anything like justice to the subject, considerable additions were required, which involved the re-casting of the whole matter; and thus, what was at first intended to be a small pamphlet, gradually expanded into the present volume.

The indifference of the Medical Profession, as a body, to the employment of Heat as a Therapeutic, and the prejudiced hostility with which the Bath has been received by the great majority of practitioners, led to the addition of the Introductory Chapter, and also of Chapter XIV., for the purpose of illustrating the value properly attachable to such opposition, no matter how authoritatively expressed, and of showing that anything new

is not necessarily false or useless because it may be ridiculed and repudiated by medical men of the highest public repute. Great professional eminence, in the estimation of the world; is quite compatible with the harbouring of inveterate prejudices, and the existence of even gross ignorance on strictly professional subjects.

It is only necessary to observe that, in describing the condition of the medical profession and the deplorable effects of drug practice, the authorities relied on are members of that profession who hold, or have held, high position in its ranks. Nothing has been advanced save on such authority, and, considering the whole character of the evidence adduced, it is for rational minds. to estimate the credit due to medical opinion, when dogmatically expressed, in opposition to the natural system of Therapeutics advocated in these pages. In medical practice, as in all other social ameliorations, public intelligence must lead the way.